


destiny is jealous

by pinkocean



Series: of threads and empty space [1]
Category: VICTON (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Red String of Fate, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 17:10:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12775608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkocean/pseuds/pinkocean
Summary: Seungwoo thinks fate must really have it in for him.





	destiny is jealous

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be a byungwoo fic but then like halfway through writing it it sort of just felt right to make it a sebyungwoo fic. such a thing does not currently exist as far as i know, so here have this messy ot3 soulmate au. 
> 
> this isn't exactly the best thing i've ever written. i wrote it all in one sitting and barely read it over. it's kind of rushed and i wish i had the motivation to turn this into a proper, longer fic with better pacing but i just really wanted to get it up asap.

When Seungwoo is 8 years old they start teaching him about it in school. The thin red thread everyone has, invisible to anyone but to the two people connected to it. It comes off the skin of his wrist as if it’s melted to it, but when he moves his other hand, it moves straight through it like a projection. The thread tangles around him but he never trips on its tail. 

_ Soulmates _ is the word his teachers and parents use. On the other end of the thread is supposed to be the love of his life, his destined partner. 

At that age he is curious, asks his parents plenty of questions. But in the end, his priorities lay elsewhere, he’d much rather focus on his community soccer tournament than his potential future love interest. 

When Seungwoo is 15 he enters the choir room of his high school only to hear the most angelic voice he’s ever known. It fills his ears and melts his heart in an instant. When his eyes find the source it stills the blood in his veins as he sees sharp, crinkly eyes and a smile bright enough to put the sun to shame. 

Seungsik is his name, a boy one year his junior. He finds his words stutter and his breathing stops when the boy introduces himself, offers him one of those blinding smiles. Seungwoo can’t help but be smitten. 

They grow closer as they bond over their shared love for music, becoming closer and closer friends as time goes on. Seungwoo’s blatant crush deepens along with this, so much so that he doesn’t care if there is no thread linking their wrists together. It may be selfish, but he  _ wants _ with his whole being, everything that two soulmates have together, he dreams of having that with his new best friend. 

But one day as he and Seungsik sit together in the choir room, preparing for their duet at the upcoming Christmas showcase, Seungsik stops mid sentence, eyes widening suddenly.

“Seungwoo.” 

Seungwoo looks up from where his eyes are reading the sheet music in his hands and raises an eyebrow at the boy in front of him. 

“My thread...” Seungsik’s gaze trails from his wrist to the door of the choir room. “It’s pulling…”

Seungwoo watches Seungsik’s face for a moment, taking in his nervous expression. He moves his eyes to the door where Seungsik cannot take his eyes away. It’s then that a small, pretty girl with shoulder length brown hair steps into the room. Seungwoo looks back at Seungsik and knows exactly what is happening from the expression the other boy wears as he takes in the presence of the girl on the other end of his thread.

It’s that moment that Seungwoo decides soulmates are bullshit.

When Seungwoo is 18 he moves away from home for school. He leaves Seungsik behind, promising he’ll return to visit for Seungsik’s approaching wedding to his soulmate, Hayoung. Seungwoo complains that they’re too young, but Seungsik insists that there’s no point in waiting when you’ve already found the person you’re destined to be with. The logic makes sense in his head, but his heart stings at the cruel reminder of the game fate has played on him. 

He goes to a school in Seoul, studying exercise science. He spends all his free time working a job coaching soccer to kids at the middle school near his apartment, and when he’s not doing that he plays on a community team. 

His roommate is a boy who introduces himself as Chan, majoring in dance. The two of them get along well enough, spending most of their weekends ordering takeout with what little money they have and watching stupid reality shows on the living room couch. 

It’s a perfectly fine setup. Seungwoo is happy, he even begins to forget about Seungsik and his unfortunate love life. He attends Seungsik and Hayoung’s wedding in the spring and manages to only cry in the bathroom once. 

Seungwoo is 20 when he meets Sejun, a biology major at his college who joins the soccer team Seungwoo is a part of. They gel instantly, easily becoming close friends. Seungwoo helps Sejun with soccer and Sejun tutors Seungwoo in biology. On the weekends, Sejun joins him and Chan in their reality show watching. 

Sejun is smart, handsome, charming, and Seungwoo begins to panic when he picks up on the same pounding in his chest he had felt with Seungsik. When Sejun’s hair falls in his face, or he smiles when Seungwoo gets a question right during their tutoring sessions, Seungwoo pushes a million tiny thoughts out of his brain about how beautiful he looks. There is no thread connecting their wrists. Seungwoo refuses to let himself go through this again.

“Have you met your soulmate yet?” Chan asks Sejun one day during a commercial break, voice laced with genuine curiosity. Seungwoo has to stop himself from groaning, constantly one to avoid the topic of soulmates. Chan liked to bring it up all the time, always a hopeless romantic. 

Sejun immediately stiffens, slowly dropping the pizza he had been chewing on back onto the plate in his lap.

“Um, no I don’t… I don’t have a soulmate.” 

Chan audibly gasps, “What do you mean you don’t have a soulmate?”

“I just never had a thread,” he explains, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, “The doctors said it must mean my soulmate died before I was born.”

Seungwoo knew that when your soulmate died, the thread disappeared, but he’d never heard of someone never having one in the first place. It’s selfish, but for a moment hope swells in his heart.

“Oh, dude, I’m so sorry for bringing it up…” Chan apologizes. The air in the room sits a little uncomfortable.

“No, no, it’s okay! I… have a boyfriend anyways,” Sejun’s tone perks up, “He doesn’t mind that we’re not soulmates and things are going really well so, really, it’s fine.”

The hope Seungwoo felt fizzles out. But, he isn’t able to contain the curiosity suddenly itching at his mind.

“Does he have a soulmate?”

Sejun’s face falls slightly once again and Seungwoo wishes he could take back his question.

“Yeah, he does, but he’s never met them and we like eachother so we just agreed that we’d be together and see how things go.”

Seungwoo, always the cynical one when it comes to soulmates, finds this fascinating. It’s mostly unheard of for two people who aren’t soulmates to be romantically involved, but he likes the idea.

It’s just a month after their conversation, weeks after Seungwoo’s turned 21, that Sejun invites his boyfriend to come along with him to his usual get-together at Chan and Seungwoo’s apartment. The two spend an hour sweeping and picking dirty socks off the floor to at least make the place presentable for their new guest.

Seungwoo is in the kitchen when he hears a knocking and the sound of Chan opening the door. He listens in as greetings are exchanged as he makes his way out to the living room.

He barely hears Sejun’s voice introducing his boyfriend over the pounding in his chest when he steps from behind the wall and watches the thread attached to his wrist tighten. He follows it’s taut trail until his gaze reaches where it connects to the wrist of the boy standing in the doorway. 

He’s too scared to look at the boy’s face, but when he does he finds a look of equal shock and horror. They stare at each other for moments, everything blurry around them, before the boy tears his eyes from Seungwoo’s and turns to Sejun.

“Do you guys… know each other?” Sejun questions. Seungwoo stays frozen, eyes stuck on his apparent soulmate.

“Sejun, can we talk for a minute… please,” Byungchan’s voice is rushed and panicked. Sejun looks back at him curiously.

“But we just stepped in the do-”

“Please.” Byungchan insists sternly, tightly gripping the fabric on his boyfriend’s arm.

“Um, sorry guys, one minute-” Sejun apologizes as Byungchan drags him by his coat back out the door they came from.

Seungwoo doesn’t know what to do.

Chan laughs beside him, “What’s up with that?”

His heart is in his stomach. He hadn’t even thought about his own soulmate in years, didn’t see this coming. He considers for a moment just jumping out the window of his 5th floor apartment and falling to his death. 

“My soulmate,” He starts, thoughts jumbling in his mind, “Sejun’s boyfriend- oh my god. Chan, he’s my soulmate.”

“I’m sorry,  _ what the fuck did you just say? _ ”

He doesn’t even shoot a glance at the boy beside him, eyes still glued to the spot where Sejun’s boyfriend had been standing moments before. The sound of a muffled conversation can be barely heard from the other side of the wall. 

After a moment of Chan silently staring at Seungwoo in shock and confusion, the door creaks open again, revealing the two boys. Both of them look shaken up.

“Seungwoo… I think we need to talk, yeah?” Sejun suggests. Seungwoo wakes from his daze for a moment to nod his head, he can’t look either of them in the eyes.

They all move themselves to the small kitchen table in the next room, quietly taking seats across from each other. Chan excuses himself, picking up on how personal the conversation is and locking himself in his room.  

“So… this is awkward.” Byungchan points out tensely. Seungwoo considers jumping out the window once more.

They talk for hours. In the end, they decide to forget about the whole idea of soulmates and leave things as they are, with Sejun and Byungchan keeping their relationship. None of them would know what else to do in this situation, it being as bizarre as it is. 

To Seungwoo’s surprise, they become quite good friends. In the beginning it’s awkward, but they eventually grow used to their uncommon situation. Byungchan and Seungwoo slowly get to know each other as they become solid fixtures in each other’s lives but their relationship always remains platonic.

Seungwoo likes Byungchan. He’s kind and a little ridiculous in an endearing way. At some point he stops looking at him as his soulmate or Sejun’s boyfriend, and just sees him as a friend. The two of them even hang out alone together a couple times, grabbing coffee when Sejun and Chan are busy. 

But something sits uneasy in Seungwoo’s mind, and it grows more prominent as times goes on. He’s convinced himself that he and Byungchan will always just be friends, and that his feelings for Sejun had been squashed. But much deeper within himself, he knows this entire reality he’s built for himself is a lie. He’s fucked. 

So, Seungwoo expects himself to feel jealousy when Byungchan kisses Sejun light on the cheek right in front of him. He doesn’t.

Instead he feels  _ want _ , unadulterated in a way he’s never felt it before. It sits in the pit of his stomach and boils in his blood. He can’t tell if he wants to be in Byungchan’s position, or Sejun’s. Or both. 

He forces himself to look away when they cuddle up together on the couch next to him, afraid of the feeling in his stomach. 

Seungwoo is 22 when his feelings come crashing down on him. He and Byungchan had been spending a lot more time alone together and the reality that this was supposed to be the love of his life itches at Seungwoo more and more. There’s an unexplainable tension between them, and Seungwoo hates himself a little for it. Sejun is his best friend, and someone he cares for deeply. He would never do anything to betray his trust, but it grows harder every day not to snap and kiss his soulmate like he feels he’s meant to. 

“Can you help me carry these up?” Byungchan asks him one day regarding the bags of groceries he had just purchased. Seungwoo had given him a ride to the store to pick up a couple things. Of course he agrees to help, grabbing a handful of bags before entering the building with Byungchan at his side.

They’re in the hallway, just before the door to Sejun and Byungchan’s apartment when Byungchan stops him.

“Wait, Seungwoo.” Seungwoo thinks he hears the boy’s voice shake a little, like he’s nervous. He turns around to face Byungchan and raises an eyebrow in question.

Seungwoo is startled when Byungchan moves to close the distance between them and presses a kiss to his mouth. It’s gentle, barely there, but it makes Seungwoo feel like he’s melting. He lets Byungchan kiss him for a moment, basks in it, before he remembers he is kissing his best friend’s boyfriend and pulls away.

“Wh-what, I- but… Sejun, I-” 

Byungchan stops Seungwoo’s confused mumbling.

“You like Sejun, don’t you?” Byungchan smiles as he says it and it just makes Seungwoo even more confused. This boy is taking him on an emotional rollercoaster.

Seungwoo blushes and his jaw tightens.

“It’s okay. I’m not blind, you know.” Byungchan giggles a little, his words are bold and confident but the expression on his face is nervous and shy.

“Please tell me what the fuck you’re trying to do right now.” Seungwoo doesn’t know how to take this situation, he feels exposed and awkward.

“I like you,” Byungchan confesses. Seungwoo’s heart stops. “Sejun likes you too.”

His head is spinning, unsure how to process the information Byungchan is dumping on him. 

“We want you to be… a part of us,” Byungchan continues, “What do you think?”

“I don’t know what the hell to think.”

“Well, do you like me?” Byungchan asks shyly. Seungwoo looks at him in silence for a minute. He had always been so cynical about soulmates, a part of him believed he would never find his and if he did it wouldn’t work out. But getting to know Byungchan changed his mind. Slowly, little aspects of Byungchan’s personality started to stick in his mind endearingly. He could see why the universe had fated them together.

“I… I do.” He answers hesitantly. Byungchan smiles at him, much brighter than he ever has before. 

“And you like Sejun?” 

Seungwoo just nods, lets himself be vulnerable in that moment and admit to his own feelings.

“Then be with us.” Byungchan looks at him with hope in his sparkling eyes. Seungwoo has never been more confused in his life, but that feeling of want reaches the pit of his stomach again, stronger than ever.

“I… okay. Yeah.”

Seungwoo tries his best to slow his breathing as Byungchan twists the doorknob to his and Sejun’s apartment and enters, smile bright and wide.

“Babe! He said yes!” Byungchan’s voice carries through the apartment as he sets down the grocery bags he had been carrying on the floor. Seungwoo steps through the door to see Sejun standing in their living room, still in the pair of sweatpants and the tshirt he probably slept in. 

“Really?” Sejun’s voice is soft and the way a small smile creeps onto his face makes Seungwoo incredibly fond. Sejun tosses the sweater he had been folding onto the back of the couch before quickly stepping across the room until he stands in front of Seungwoo, grabbing his face and pressing their lips together chastely. 

“I’ve been wanting to do that for so long,” Sejun says when he pulls away. Seungwoo glances at Byungchan for a reaction, and the boy just smiles at him happily.

“This is so fucking weird.” Seungwoo mumbles honestly, the other two boys laugh at him. 

“In a good way?” Sejun asks.

“In a good way.”

Sejun helps them carry in the bags of groceries. Seungwoo can’t help but notice the smiles on all of their faces.

It’s Byungchan who makes the suggestion, “We should all go on a date!”

So, they do just that. The three of them head out to the street and make their way to a nearby restaurant where they share a meal and just  _ talk _ , about everything. Seungwoo feels a warmth in his chest that he’s never felt before. It’s nice.

They do this a few more times, go on little dates with just the three of them. The situation becomes less strange to him over time, and he eventually lets himself feel the happiness it brings him, accepts that the want he felt before is no longer there. It doesn’t matter to him that one boy is his soulmate and one boy isn’t, this is what feels right to him. Fuck everything he’s ever thought about soulmates and destiny, he belongs with both these boys who make him endlessly happy. 

**Author's Note:**

> why would i go through with my original idea of having sejun and byungchan eventually break up for byungwoo to happen if i could just make them all in love with each other.
> 
> i could write some fluff in this universe if y'all want that, let me know.


End file.
